I’m a Twitter

I’m a Twitter

There was a lot of talk about Twitter at SXSW this year. Though the concept seemed trivial and useless to me when I first heard of it, it does do one thing very well: closeness through shared environmental context. A big part of friendship is just hanging out and doing things together without direct communication. You can learn a lot about someone by just watching what they’re doing; Twitter is a kind of virtual version of that.

So here’s my Twitter profile…I’m going to give this a try for a couple weeks and see what happens. The theory is that I might feel like I’m part of a tribe.

6 Comments

  1. Brian Gilham 18 years ago

    That feeling, of being “part of a tribe” is exactly what’s kept me so addicted to Twitter. I’ve added all sorts of 9rulers and bloggers I’m friends with and admire and I love seeing updates from them throughout the day. It almost feels like the greatest non-secret in the world. ;-)

  2. zzap 18 years ago

    I think the appropriate title of this post would be “I’m a Twitterer”—and I right or what?

  3. Bruce 18 years ago

    I think twitter and twitterer are both verbs with the same meaning zzap—as opposed to twit which has an entirely different meaning…

  4. Dave Seah 18 years ago

    Brian: Yeah, it’s cool! I realized yesterday, during one spontaneous twittering, that it fills that “got to tell someone” impulse when you do something or discover something.

    Zzap, Bruce: Hm, interesting point. Technically maybe Twitterer—-a user of Twitter—-could be more accurate, but Bruce is right too in that they both mean the same thing (you made me look it up :-). The main reason for the name, though, was because it sounds like, “I’m atwitter”, like “I’m atingle” or “I’m aflutter”. So, I got two headlines for the price of one :-) You should see me play Connect-4 :-)

  5. Jeffrey Keefer 18 years ago

    Welcome to Twitter, David. I have been using it for two weeks now, have blogged about it several times, and have read dozens of pro’s and con’s about it. Regardless of whether it is long-lasting or not, there is something very comforting about knowing lots of people are out there with similar interests. Case in point—I have read your site (probably unbeknownst to you) for months as well as used your materials you created and made available here. It is your post on Twitter that brings me to comment and introcude myself. BTW, I added you as a Twitter friend!

  6. Venomous Kate 18 years ago

    Hey, I’m twitterpated. Had never thought to look at it as being “part of a tribe,” but the social hive aspect’s pretty darned interesting.